


obtaining a cult following (and other essentials)

by stargirls



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, REAPER SQUAD HECK YEAH, i'm very proud of it, yes this is from tumblr, yes this is the lup cult fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 09:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13164318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargirls/pseuds/stargirls
Summary: Lup is very good at her job.Unfortunately, she might be a little too good.





	obtaining a cult following (and other essentials)

**Author's Note:**

> yes, this is the lup cult fic. yes, i'm very proud of it. once in awhile i do actually write something lighthearted, i promise.
> 
> a fun little something to tide everybody over until i can get back on my feet and update my two ongoing fics! i've been extremely sick and ended up falling behind on my update schedule, but i promise i'm doing everything i can to get the next chapters of debate team au and cyberpunk au up and published. in the meantime, have some of that grade-a reaper squad content featuring lup being her flawless self!
> 
> hope everyone's having a lovely candlenights season!

Reality rips itself apart, but this time, there’s no scythe that follows.

Instead, the rift ripples and surges across layers of void-deep blackness, with only the faintest of lights pushing through the other side. Kravitz takes one look at it and sighs.

“It’s a Sunday,” he says. “I thought they took Sundays off.”

“Necromancy never rests, huh?” Barry, bless his heart, doesn’t sound nearly as apologetic as he’s trying to be. He stands up from his desk, and Lup stretches, popping a few choice joints in her arms and back. If a little action will get her out of filing six different debriefs, she’s all for it, even if she’d just started to make a dent in her latest read. The prose is dry and the research is shaky at best, but she’s enjoying taking a red pen to it and making notes in the margins for her own experiments. As for the debriefs—well, the Raven Queen is omnipotent, and she sees nothing wrong with writing “We kicked ass” across a formal document if that’s the truth.

That doesn’t matter, anyway. They’ve got a bounty to hunt.

Or that’s what it looks like, at least, until Kravitz holds up a hand. “Not a bounty,” he says, and Lup and Barry deflate as one. “Gods above, I _hate_ these. They couldn’t have taken off work after five like everyone else?”

Lup twirls her pen. “So what is it, then?”

“A summons.” He looks more irritable than angry, but Lup recognizes the rhythm Kravitz’s fingers are tapping out against his thigh. “And not necessarily necromancers, either. I’ll have to just, ah… call Taako, I promised I’d be back by seven for dinner prep…”

Barry glances sideways at Lup, who shoots him her best _I-got-this_ smile and materializes her scythe. She reaches across her desk and pokes him with the handle, and it promptly dissolves again as he turns around, startled, Stone of Farspeech in hand. “Hey. Y’know what? Go home. Lemme handle it, I got this.”

His poker face is even worse than Barry’s, and instantly Kravitz looks nervous. “N—No, no, I should take this one. Chances are they’re just looking for an emissary. I’ll manifest, just give them a quick spiel about the balance of life and death, shouldn’t take too long—”

“Yeah, but what if you get held up? You know how this line of work goes.” Better than she does, actually; Lup’s been on the job for a fraction of the time Kravitz has, but it doesn’t take centuries of experience to know that nothing ever goes as planned. If Lup’s walking into a trap, well, she can handle herself, and she’ll have a fantastic story for the dinner table. If she manifests in front of a bunch of snot-nosed novices with a stack of spellbooks and shaky knees, then the work’s practically done itself.

A win-win scenario. What could possibly go wrong?

Kravitz relents. Probably less because he has faith in Lup’s ability, and moreso because he knows he’s not going to win an argument with her, but a victory’s a victory. “Okay,” he says. “You have a point. But there are some ground rules, alright? You can’t just go in guns blazing and put the fear of the Raven Queen into their hearts.”

“I thought that was _all_ it is.”

“Well—no. You have to be careful.” Kravitz holds up a hand and ticks off his fingers as he goes, like he’s reciting guidelines from memory. He may very well be, Lup thinks. The astral plane has more of them than she’d expected, including a few on colorfully rendered posters hanging up around the office. “If they’re not necromancers, and they may not be, you cannot threaten or coerce them into surrendering their souls. Same goes for if there aren’t any liches around. If any of them are warlocks associated with the Raven Queen, you can kinda check in with them, make sure they’re not abusing their power. No need to bring the scythe, either—we’ve had some property damage issues. Oh, and—” Kravitz winces. “Do _not_ step outside the summoning circle. No matter what you do. It won’t destroy you or anything, but it will discorporate you, and it _fucking hurts_.”

He takes a deep, albeit unnecessary breath, and levels his gaze at Lup. “Repeat that back to me.”

Lup hums. “Nerf the necromancers and liches get stitches, everybody else is chill. Check with the warlocks. No swinging scythes around indoors. Stay inside the circle on pain of—pain. I told you, I got it.”

If anything, Kravitz looks more nervous. “You’re gonna kill it, babe,” Barry says, and then, “Wow. Real bad choice of words there. Or real good, I guess… uh, they don’t need two emissaries, do they?”

“Circle’s not big enough,” says Kravitz, matter-of-factly.

That’s the difference between him and Lup, who just snickers. “I love you,” she tells Barry, “but if you go over there and put on your lich act, they’re either gonna lose their minds laughing or actually lose their minds.”

He pulls an insulted expression. “I’m intimidating!”

“Very,” says Lup, and blows him a kiss. She swings around and flaps her hand at Kravitz. “Stop dawdling and just go, will you? It’ll be fine, I promise.”

Kravitz’s scythe appears in his hands, and he twists the handle between his fingers, still radiating anxiety. “Just—call if it goes bad. Or if you can’t, uh… project your resonance or something, get creative. Barry, you’ll keep an ear out?”

“ ’Course.”

“Okay.” He stares hesitantly back at the rift, then rips his own out of the space next to Lup’s desk. “Okay. I’ll be off. Lup, just…”

“Don’t do anything stupid.” She winks at him and flashes a thumbs-up. “Go placate Taako’s wrath. I’ll be five minutes.”

Kravitz returns the thumbs-up, looking only slightly ill, and disappears through the rift.

“Alright then.” Lup vaults over the edge of her desk, just narrowly missing the mug sitting next to her book. It’s part of a matching set she shares with Barry— _WE’VE GOT CHEMISTRY,_  it says, accompanied by two cartoonish beakers overflowing with pink liquid. An unsolved Secret Santa gift from the Candlenights prior; she suspects Lucretia, who’s more partial to science puns than she’d like everyone to believe. “I guess I’m up.”

When he wants to, Barry’s pretty decent at playing it cool, but she catches the flash of worry that skitters across his face. “You’ll be careful?”

Lup raises an eyebrow. “It’s me.”

He raises one right back, and, well, that’s perfectly fair. Lup concedes with a laugh as she steps forward, taking Barry’s face in her hands. She can feel the beginnings of stubble poking through, dotting his chin and climbing up his cheeks. “Fine. I’ll grant you that. But I _promise_ I’ll be careful. The most careful. I’ll be so careful, it’ll blow—your—socks—off.” She punctuates each word with a tiny kiss over the patches of stubble, and Barry rolls his eyes, but breaks into a smile nonetheless. “Like I said. Five minutes. You’ll never even know I was gone.”

“Well, thank the gods for that,” Barry murmurs, trying and failing to suppress his grin. “I don’t know what I’d do without you here.”

“No shame in needing a competent woman, babe.” She presses one last kiss to the corner of his mouth and twirls on her heel. “Let’s see how these chucklefucks handle death in fishnets, shall we?”

And with that, a one-liner she’s rather proud of, Lup steps through the rift.

* * *

Interdimensional travel by someone else’s parameters isn’t nearly as relaxing as it sounds. The astral plane tilts dizzyingly around her, and Lup knows she has seconds before she re-materializes in whatever dreary basement they’ve constructed for the benefit of atmosphere. One thing she’s learned after just weeks on the job: clichés exist for a reason. Apparently occult rituals really do draw power from dark and stormy nights, and there’s nothing a cult loves more than a dungeon in which to do their summoning.

Well, then, Lup ought to live up to expectations. She doesn’t take on her reaper form just yet—tonight may not require any reaping, and besides, she never tires of the horror on people’s faces when her flesh starts to melt. (She doesn’t even _need_ to do it that way, not really. The payoff is just hilarious and gratifying every time.) But Prestidigitation boils in her veins as the lights surrounding her shift and sharpen, and with a roar and a loud _pop_ in her ears, Lup erupts into the material plane.

She wills it, and immediately smoke billows from the ground at her feet and sparks shoot from her fingertips. It awards her a few strategic heartbeats to survey her surroundings, which she’ll pretend was on purpose. The first thing Lup notices is how well-lit the space is. Candles are scattered across the floor and mounted on the walls, and someone’s draped black fabric over what she assumes are windows—they’re above ground, then. That’s refreshing. Two exits that she can see: a staircase on one side, and on the other, a heavily bolted door. Apart from a few tables shoved to the side, though, the room is mostly empty. Except for its inhabitants, that is.

There are four of them. Lup blinks; usually cults have a minimum of five members at least, and even then, that’s more of a fantasy tabletop roleplaying group than a nefarious death-dodging horde. They’re clad in dark purple robes, all of which look a little too big, and the figure in front is holding an enormous spellbook, which he drops in a heap of dust to the floor. Lup looks him up and down, taking in his ratty boots and trembling hands.

Amateurs. Easy to spot from a mile away.

He falls to his knees, and the others follow hurriedly suit, bowing their heads with a collective whimper of fear. “O, g-great deity of life and death,” he stammers, fumbling for the spellbook, and spares her only a glance at first. Then his hands freeze, and he looks up, mouth slightly agape. “You’re—you are even more glorious in person.”

“Thanks,” says Lup, breezily. Her ears flick and twitch, searching for the telltale hum of arcane power, and chart it in a lopsided circle around her. When she shifts to prop a hand on her hip, her tongue tastes faintly of iron. They may be novices, but hot _damn,_  there’s some powerful magic at work here. “I get that a lot. But, uh, if you’re looking for the Raven Queen, I’m afraid you’re not gonna reach her at this hour. Or any hour. If you’re picking up what I’m putting down.”

He stares at her, owl-eyed, from behind blocky spectacles that remind her of Barry’s. “I—I—”

“So,” she interrupts, and all it takes is a simple evocation spell—not even the twitch of a finger, really—to set tiny flames dancing about her heels. This lot might be about as dangerous as Steven the goldfish, but upping the intimidation factor never hurts. “Care to tell me why you fellas are trying to summon a goddess on this fine evening?”

“First, uh—” The poor thing still looks utterly terrified. So the flames might have been a bit overkill, but Lup’s not about to dial it back now. “To—To whom am I, uh, uh, speaking?”

“Emissary of Death, hon. Reaper of unruly souls, Raven Queen’s smokin’ hot answering machine, so on, et cetera. You gonna answer my question?”

He audibly swallows. “We—we didn’t think we could do it. We weren’t trying to hurt anyone, I swear, we just—it was a dare, a stupid thing, I’m not even level five, I didn’t think I could summon a—an angel of death—”

Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it? Lup sighs and snaps her fingers over the boy’s shaking form, commanding his attention. He’s a kid, she thinks. They all are, and kids do stupid shit, especially when they feel like they’ve got something to prove. “Usually somebody doesn’t try to summon a goddess unless they’re serious about it.”

“I know, I just—I mean, Trav over here’s a warlock, he thought it wouldn’t hurt to check in with his patron anyway, it was just—I told you, it was stupid. Stupid.”

Lup’s head snaps to the kid’s companion. “You’re in the service of the Raven Queen?”

“Trav” nods. He looks delirious with terror.

“Cool, cool. That’s a privilege, okay? Don’t do anything particularly asinine and represent us well out here. And don’t, uh, drink and cast.” She glosses over her stammer with a jaunty wink, and he stares, but at least he’s stopped cowering. The other two look more awestruck now than terrified.

There’s about a full five seconds of silence, punctuated only by the resonance of arcane energy around them, before Lup claps her hands and breaks the spell. All four of the wannabe cultists jump.

“Well!” she says. “I’ve got some very important business to get to. Summons left and right, you know the drill. But when I leave here, you four are gonna clean all this up and then go do something productive, okay? Contribute to society. Read a book. And no more summoning goddesses, please.”

“Yes,” says the boy with the spellbook. “Yes, absolutely.”

“Awesome.” Lup flashes them a brilliant grin. “Keep it real, boys.”

She pushes her boot through a line of chalk, smudging it, and the world flips inside out. Five minutes, give or take. She’ll be back in time for appetizers and then some. There might even be time for an impromptu makeout session with Barry back at the office, which Lup wholly feels she’s earned after a job well done. Not bad for her first summons—in fact, she decides, it really couldn’t have gone better.

* * *

The funny thing is it doesn’t come up at the office.

Instead it’s nearly a month later, at one of their bi-weekly family dinners. The kitchen is abuzz with activity and overflowing with delicious aromas, and Lup stands in the eye of the hurricane, whipping batter with practiced ease. The actual storm rages around Taako next to her. He stands over the stove and tosses spice after spice into a bubbling soup, sampling it erratically and muttering something about his unrecognized genius. Occasionally he’ll flick his wand at the cutting board across the counter, and a vegetable will slice and dice itself and float obediently to the pot. She’s sure he’s showing off, but Angus, who’s hard at work nearby picking the seeds out of a pomegranate, seems to get a kick out of it every time.

When her brother is in cooking mania mode, it takes nothing short of a miracle to snap him out of it, which explains why he doesn’t look up when Kravitz wanders over to their station. She waves the whisk at him as he approaches. “What’s goin’ on, Ghost Rider? Taako says you’re not allowed around the cooking utensils. Or, uh, the ingredients, for that matter.”

“Yeah, I… don’t exactly have the magic touch.” He smiles half-heartedly at his own joke, but Lup can already tell something’s up, because Kravitz’s face settles back into something impassive almost straightaway. “Lup, can I talk to you?”

“Uh…” Lup glances back at Taako. He isn’t even looking in their direction as he sorts through herbs, still mumbling to himself. “Sure thing. I think these two’ve got it covered.”

Angus catches her eye and gives her a thumbs-up.

So Lup follows Kravitz from the kitchen, through one of the gaping entrances and into an alcove adjacent. One of Taako’s several bulletin boards hang from the far wall, cluttered with newspaper clippings and recipe notes marked up in red pen. Kravitz spares it an affectionate glance before he turns to face her. “So.”

Lup crosses her arms and cocks an eyebrow. “I’m in that much trouble, huh?”

“No—no.” He sighs, and it’s a work sigh, one of the rare few reserved for unruly reapers and souls that can’t seem to find their way to the astral plane. “Do you… remember responding to a summons, about a month ago?”

“Oh, sure, ’course. Dropped in on four boys fucking with the barrier between planes. Told ’em to stay smart, stop trying to summon goddesses, may have scared the shit outta them, but only a little bit. I thought it was a job pretty well done.” Her eyebrow creeps higher. “I’m guessing you’re not looking to congratulate me?”

“We have connections,” says Kravitz. “To the material plane. It’s how we find out about the cults and the necromancers and such, and, well…” He drags a hand down his face. “Lup, I dunno how to say this, but when you appeared to those men, you seem to have… _inspired_ them.”

That doesn’t sound good. “Inspired?”

“I mean, they’re fanatics. They’ll latch onto any divine energy they can get into contact with, and, well… it’s not that you didn’t do well.” Kravitz holds out a hand, appeasing. “You did. But usually I take care of these things, and I do so in such a way that—well, they just—they don’t talk about it afterwards,” he says, hurriedly, and Lup remembers that for all Kravitz’s gentlemanly mannerisms and grade-A dorkdom, there’s a reason he’s one of the Raven Queen’s favored reapers. “So this isn’t your fault. It isn’t anybody’s fault—nobody knew what was going to happen.”

“Kravitz,” says Lup, and a laugh bubbles through the word, soft and questioning. “What are you _talking_ —”

“Those boys started a cult,” Kravitz says. “The Order of Devotees to the Angel of Death.”

Lup stares flatly at him as the cogs in her brain whistle and steam. “What?”

“A cult,” he repeats. “Dedicated to you.”

She starts laughing.

It’s like a reflex. It’s also wildly unprofessional, but Lup can’t help it, and she’s never really given a shit about professionalism anyway. She giggles and cackles and braces her hands on her knees, and tears form in her eyes, threatening to streak her eyeliner. When she’s finally able to look up, eyes watery with mirth, she sees Kravitz’s mouth twitch and it sets her off all over again. It has to be a full thirty seconds before she can regain any shred of composure, and even then, she’s feeling questionable at best.

“Wow,” is all she can say.

Although it looks completely against his will, Kravitz snorts. “Yeah. _Wow_ is… wow is right.”

“But they’re not—they’re not hurting anybody, or doing any bad shit, are they?”

“As near as we can tell, no. It’s a cult of worship, nothing more. But it—” With a flick of his wrist, he materializes the leather-bound book she recognizes from countless missions. “I mean, they’re—ahem. Composing hymns to your, uh, glory. They seem obsessed with your, um…” He gestures helplessly in Lup’s general direction. “Your physical appearance? There’s no good way to say that, is there?”

Lup almost cracks up again, but instead, she manages a shrug. “So my smokin’ hot bod started a cult. Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.”

He looks at her disbelievingly.

“ _Kidding_. Look. As long as they’re not doing anybody any harm, it’s no big deal, right? If they do get up to some bad shit, I’ll show up again and reap their asses. No mercy and no favoritism from the great Angel of Death.” She flips her hair and postures herself in her best _all-powerful_ stance. “Cool?”

Kravitz fidgets where he stands. He’s only slightly taller than her, and she knows she commands an intimidating presence regardless of whether or not she wants to. “You inspired a _cult_ , Lup. It’s not like you meant to, but that doesn’t just—that doesn’t just fly when you’re under the service of the Raven Queen.”

“I get you,” says Lup, “I really do, but what can I do? Deities kinda have a non-interference policy with their followers, right? That’s what we’re here for.”

“You’re not a—”

“Deity, yes, I know. I was making a point.” She releases an entirely unnecessary sigh. Something hisses and pops in the kitchen behind them, followed by a muffled curse and the familiar scent of ozone. “If anything comes up—absolutely anything, Kravitz, if they put a pinky toe out of line or even look in the direction of a necromantic incantation—I’ll do whatever needs to be done. But they’re not hurting anybody. They’re dumb kids obsessing over a gorgeous gal. Can you blame ’em?”

He still looks uncertain. The book dissipates, leaving static crackling in its wake. “Kids?”

“Twenties, ballpark,” says Lup. “And scared outta their minds. They didn’t even think the summons would work, and it’s not their fault that I showed up lookin’ all flawless, now, was it?”

“I mean…” Kravitz’s voice is heavy with skepticism, but she can tell he’s starting to thaw. “You were perfectly reasonable with them, right?”

“Entirely.”

“And you didn’t say anything about sacrifices or do anything… uh, demonic. Right?”

Lup places a hand over where her heart would be. “The very thought offends me.”

“Well, then.” He clasps his hands and shoots her an awkward, tight-lipped smile. “Our Queen hasn’t said anything on the matter, so… cool? I guess?”

“Cool,” says Lup, and flashes him a grin. “No sweat, skele-man. I promised you I got it, and I do. Now I gotta get back in there before Taako figures out I’m—”

“ _Lulu_!”

“Oops,” she lilts, and whirls on her heel. “I’m toast.”

* * *

Lup is very good at her job.

She hasn’t had it for very long, but the thing about reaping souls is that if you don’t develop a knack for it after a certain period of time, you’re just not cut out for eternal undeath. Luckily, Lup’s always been rather good at whatever she puts her mind to. It’s a demanding occupation—that’s for damn sure—but she doesn’t mind spending her days bounty hunting as long as she’s doing it with style. Death in fishnets has become a harbinger of doom and some really fantastic pyrotechnics, if she does say so herself. She’s been racking up souls as the year goes on, building a reputation for herself among the most insidious circles, and between Kravitz and her husband’s lich-inspired dramatics, they dare not venture out for fear of meeting their end at the hands of the Raven Queen’s three finest reapers.

And if one of the feared Emissaries of Death takes a break every once in awhile to drop in on four of her devotees for a bit of ritualistic wine and cheese, well, that’s no one’s business but her own.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @lichlesbian and on twitter @stellarlesbian!


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